


Relations

by LeDiz



Series: The 48: Dreamworks [9]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, Jack is old fashioned, Technically Tooth/Jack, The Stork - Freeform, but not really, emotions are hard, the difference between affection and attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:56:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeDiz/pseuds/LeDiz
Summary: Things between Jack and Tooth are complicated - or at least some people are making it feel complicated. Jack tries to work out why and how and that stupid bird didn't help at all...





	

He didn’t know why North had gotten it into his head that they needed to have The Talk, but it only took about six seconds after he figured out they were having it before Jack managed to crash his way out of the office, stumbling in the non-existent wind and scrabbling to get a grip on his staff.

“Stop! Talking!” he ordered as he finally found his balance in the air and was able to turn his staff on North. “Just – just stop. No. No, no, no. This never happened. It never needs to happen. No.”

North looked just as relieved to be escaping it as Jack felt, but he wasn’t taking chances. When North opened his mouth, Jack leapt up to the rafters and hid behind a support beam. “No!”

It was, by far, the stupidest thing that had happened to him since joining the guardians. Even when he worked his way through the mortification and abject horror, he didn’t really get it. He knew he looked younger than he… had been… but even when he packed in his pride and admitted he could pass for a world-weary fourteen year old at times, there was absolutely no reason for North to think he needed that kind of conversation.

He was three hundred years old! And even if he really was fourteen, what kind of teenager didn’t know how that stuff worked? And – and – and even if this was the 1950s, or whenever, why would he, a guardian of children, who spent all of his time around children, ever need to know about it?

Actually, seriously, why?

He peeked around the support beam and narrowed his eyes at the sight of North still watching him. “Is this about Tooth?”

“Why would this be about Tooth?” he asked cautiously, and Jack’s eyes narrowed further. His evasiveness was practically confirmation. North seemed to notice his response and shifted awkwardly before admitting, “Sandy, Bunny and I… we have noticed… looks between you two. And thought it best I talk with you.”

Jack scowled. Okay, he could admit he and Tooth had a… complicated relationship, and that they were still working out what that meant. On the one hand, he was a seventeen year old boy, while she was beautiful (in a… bird-lady-ish sort of way), found him attractive, and was affectionate, something he’d been missing for a good three hundred years. He’d be lying if he hadn’t at least thought about the logistics. On the other hand, she was sweet, kind, caring, and affectionate: something he’d been _really_ missing for a good three hundred years. When she hugged him, all warm and proud, doing anything but nestling into her shoulder seemed downright crazy.

“You have… not been around many women, yes? We thought, perhaps, you might be… not understanding some emotions.”

“Oh, come _on_!” he snapped, and slid back behind his support beam.

The annoying thing was that they weren’t wrong. He _was_ struggling to sort out how he felt about Tooth. He was struggling to sort out how he felt about all of them. And yeah, he knew he wasn’t exactly well-versed in social nuances. Sometimes he did things or said things and it would only be after everyone had started staring at him that he’d realise he’d done something wrong. He grimaced, suddenly realising he might have been being forward and not even known. It’d certainly explain why Tooth got so awkward around him sometimes. Oh, stars above, what if he’d made _advances_? It had been years since he’d paid attention to flirting teenagers, or watched a romance movie. He didn’t even know what counted as an advance, lately!

He groaned quietly and let himself slide down the beam, beating his head against his staff.

He blamed modern culture, especially the American one. No, you know what? He blamed the end of drive-in movies. He’d gotten ridiculous amounts of social education from drive-ins. They’d been fun, too.

“Jack?”

He hesitated, then slowly peeked down at North again. He was a little ashamed of how small his voice was when he asked, “Is she mad?”

“Who? Tooth?” he asked, then grinned broadly. “We have not talked to Tooth yet. That is Sandy’s job.”

So… this wasn’t them telling him to back off. Wait, what had North said? That he might not… oh. Oh! They thought – or well, really, they _knew_ he was confused. They just didn’t know why. Right. Well. That was humiliating.

“But if you need to talk,” North continued meaningfully, and then slapped his belly. “I am here.”

Despite himself, Jack almost had to smile fondly. The guardians were suffocating. Wonderful, and he did appreciate the thought, but all of them were so incredibly suffocating. He heaved in a breath, schooled his expression into one of righteous indignation, and got to his feet. “Good to know. I am so not,” he said, and leapt into the wind and out the open skylight window.

Touching thought aside, that was not a conversation he wanted to have.

Especially not with North.

 

* * *

 

The mortification did not fade within a few hours, like he’d thought.

He really wasn’t sure what was more embarrassing – that North had thought he needed to give him The Talk, or that now Jack was thinking about it, he kind of felt like he might want it.

Not – not _The_ Talk, of course. He knew that. Heck, he was pretty sure he’d known that before he’d known anything. In an abstract, academic sense, anyway. He’d known that men and women were different, that parts fit together, and babies did not come from storks, cabbage patches, or whatever else children believed at the—

He stopped on a rooftop, the coincidence making him double-take. The stork, perched on a chimney on the next house, paused its preening long enough to send him a glare, and Jack shifted his weight back on his hips, eyes dropping to the window nearest the chimney.

“Hey!” the stork snapped. “Eyes on the road, whitey!”

“ _Whitey_? Like you’re one to talk!” he shouted back, but moved his eyes back up. “What’s so special about that house, huh? Haven’t seen you back home in years!”

“Well that’s hardly my problem, is it?”

Jack scowled, but didn’t really have room to comment. The stork didn’t literally bring the babies, but he did bless mothers-to-be with healthy pregnancies. He wasn’t around as much as he used to be, science doing more to deliver healthy babies than belief, and although he’d become a lot more tolerable of Jack now that winter wasn’t as prone to killing newborns, Jack secretly wondered if he was fading. The few parents that still talked about storks and cabbage patches were quickly being overrun by the internet, and the idea of fertility spirits had kind of gone out with the seventies.

Of course, before he’d met the guardians, he’d never known that belief did more than make spirits visible. Now he was starting to worry about his own longevity. Six kids in Burgess wouldn’t believe forever.

He furrowed his brow, then looked up at the stork again in search of a distraction. “Hey, question.”

“No, you can’t watch.”

He shot a streak of ice at the bird for that, but it sailed harmlessly overhead. Well. A whole inch overhead. “I’m serious, birdbrain.”

“So am I. You think I actually believe that little door-problem of yours?”

It was very, very difficult to contain the urge to freeze the bird from beak to tail, but Jack was trying to learn to control his temper, so he wouldn’t turn into Bunny. He instead jumped over to stand on the other end of the roof to the chimney, fighting down the burn in his cheeks, and hooked his staff behind his back where it was least threatening. “How do you know who to bless?”

The stork gave him a look that was slightly blanker than normal. “How do you know where to make it snow?”

“That’s different. I just… make snow days where I want to,” he said, ignoring the part of him that knew he unconsciously served Mother Nature and her whims. “I bring the weather; you don’t make people decide they want to… to do _that_. So how do you know they’re going to?”

“I don’t know. I just fly where I feel like going, and… sit where seems right,” he said, and fluttered his wings like a human would roll their shoulders. “I suppose I can just smell it.”

“Smell it?” he repeated, then made a face, remembering what he was talking about. “Ugh.”

“Not like that, you _human_ ,” he spat. “ _Before_ it happens. I can smell when the female is ripe.”

“You know what? I take it back. I don’t want to know,” he said, turning away again, and the stork rolled his eyes.

“Well then what were you talking about?” he demanded. “How else would I know which women to bless?”

 “I – I don’t know!” Jack cried, throwing up his hand. “I don’t know how anyone knows! It used to be after the marriage, or at least dating, or something! Now it’s just like they laugh and talk or argue and shove each other around and bam! Suddenly relations! And it’s not even like you can assume that just because men and women of a certain age are spending time together that they’re planning it anymore. I saw thirteen year olds doing it last year! _Thirteen_! And – and not just girls and boys. Girls and girls, boys and boys, sometimes multiples of each! Sometimes they don’t even look like they’re enjoying it! Sometimes they’re doing it to hurt each other! And not just physically, like it used to be, but emotionally too! There’s no sense to it! It doesn’t make sense! It’s crazy! How am I supposed to understand it? How am I supposed to know whether I’m doing it? How am I supposed to know anything about it when the whole thing is just plain mad!”

He stopped, suddenly realising he’d been yelling for the last few sentences, and that the stork was staring at him as only a stork could. After a moment, Jack set down his staff, which he now realised he’d been waving around, and took an awkward step out of the snow pile he’d created around himself. He coughed.

“Why would _you_ need to understand it?” the stork asked finally, in his usual blunt way. “It’s not like anyone can see you for it to matter.”

Embarrassment made his hurt and frustration a little easier to ignore. “Other spirits can see me. And I have believers now.”

“Did the vikings come back, or did they make another stupid movie about you?”

He couldn’t help glaring at the reminder of the late nineteen-nineties—a time full of false hope brought on by a surprising variety of B-grade movies—but said nothing, and the stork shrugged, clearly uninterested. “Even if people can see you, _relations_ , as you so archaically put it, are all about heat, _Frost_. No business of yours. Or are you trying to put frostbite in awkward places?”

“What did you expect, Jack?” he muttered, turning away again. “You’re asking a bird for dating advice.”

“Dating advice? You?”

“No!” Jack spun around again, pointing his staff in defence. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did,” he argued. “Who do you want to date? Don’t you spend all your time around children that don’t see you?”

“No! Yes! No!” he yelped, realising the insinuation too late. “No!”

“Well, all you humans are odd to me, so it’s hardly my business what age you’re chasing,” he said mildly, and ice crept over the rooftiles as Jack seethed.

“I will roast you alive!”

“I hardly see how,” he replied. “Now, if I’m to assume anything from all your ramblings, someone has told you another spirit wants to have—” It shouldn’t be possible for a bird to smirk, but be damned if the stork wasn’t managing it. “— _relations_ with you, and you don’t know whether to believe it.”

“I didn’t say that,” he ground out. “And quit mocking my stupid choice of words.”

“Thou dost protest most enthusiastically for one so innocent.”

Jack twitched. Usually he was the one screwing with other people and mocking them for their stupid ticks and slip-ups. He really didn’t like this turn-about, but at the same time, the stork was probably as neutral a knowledgeable party as he was going to get. He would either have to go back to working things out on his own, or swallow his pride, temper and sense of humour and put up with the damn bird. “Say I _know_ a woman finds me attractive, but I’m not sure I want to… explore that option. How do I know whether I’ve been… forward? What’s considered forward, these days?”

“First you call it relations, and now you’re talking about being forward,” he said slowly. “Tell me, Frost, did you stop speaking to women in the early twentieth century, or…?”

He literally swallowed his first response, bit down on the second, and finally managed, “Let’s just say it’s been a while.”

“Huh.” The stork preened a few feathers while he considered, then cocked his head and said, “There aren’t many clear-cut social cues anymore. It’s all in the look. And you…” He trailed off for a few moments, judging Jack with a critical eye. “You always have the look.”

“Look?” he repeated, barely holding back his annoyance. “What look?”

“The look. That look. You look at the world so intensely, with such _longing_. On a normal person, it would mean something along the lines of ‘do anything you like to me and I promise to enjoy it’,” he said, business-like in his appraisal. “But with you, double meanings are entirely in the view of the beholder, and pranks aside, you are generally innocent. But I should remind you, I am a bird, with no interest in humans except their ability to make children. I see things objectively, where other, more human spirits, do not.”

Jack blinked, struggling to form a response, and the stork shrugged carelessly. “Someone who was more inclined to desire a double-meaning in your oh-so-yearning expression would probably find it quite easily. So yes, to answer your question, you probably have been _forward_. And if certain expectations on the subject of _relations_ were made, I would not be altogether surprised.”

While the stork blinked at him lazily, Jack’s jaw worked around all the comebacks and intelligent responses that simply weren’t coming to mind. His feet and the wind, however, knew exactly what to do, and he was gone in seconds.

 

* * *

 

Sitting high on his favourite Antarctic ice shelf, Jack glared at the world and muttered furiously that he didn’t have a look.

He’d seen the look Stork was talking about. The heated, expectant, excited look. And yeah, okay, Jack could admit he got pretty easily excited about… well, a lot of things, yes, and yeah, talking to people did kind of fill him with the need to hear more, talk more, and want more, but if there was one thing Jack Frost never was, it was _heated_. Jack did not do heat, so how the heck was he supposed to give heated looks, huh?

As a line of argument, he thought it was pretty solid, now that he wasn’t actually looking at his own reflection. Originally, he’d polished up a strip of ice and scowled at it, but judging his own expressions had put him in mind of all the times he’d seen the look on human faces, and not only did that fill him with remembered mortification, but he would, despite himself, see a hint of what the stupid bird talked about.

Just hints, of course! Hints!

He didn’t have a look.

He’d seen plenty of humans with a look. Sometimes Jack felt like winter did more for resolving unresolved sexual tension than was fair – Cupid had even told him, _to his face_ , that he loved it when Jack was around because all he had to do was shoot arrows and leave, because the humans would generally sort themselves out after that.

It wasn’t his fault, by the way, no matter what the stupid stork said! Whenever he saw an open door or window, he kind of had to go through it. It was practically an invitation, after all. He didn’t get many of those. And he was of the personal opinion that log cabins in the woods were practically made for him. They chilled so _easily_. And they always had these little hidden treasures in them. Toys, books, compasses, all sorts of things. Jack loved log cabins.

Unfortunately, so did weary travellers that liked to shut and lock the door behind them.

Which was how Jack learned that he and door handles didn’t really get along.

It was weird. It was stupid. It had something to do with humans not believing doors could open without someone turning the handle. And possibly that stupid saying about not letting Jack Frost in.

He knew that was why he couldn’t walk through walls like Tooth’s fairies, or make tunnels like Bunny, or slip through tiny spaces like North. All of which would have come in handy the hundred-odd times a couple shut him into a tiny log cabin and started taking off their clothes.

It had been interesting the first few times – not that he would ever, ever admit it, but Jack was a curious creature, it had been something he didn’t understand, and, well… he _was_ eternally seventeen.

But once he did understand it, in all its weird forms, it stopped being interesting. It became really damn frustrating. Not just because he didn’t have the ability to do the same, but also because it got boring, and he couldn’t get away.

He tried to break it up sometimes, or stop it from happening, by casting snow or dropping the temperature, but they almost always lit a fire, which would quickly drain his strength and leave him curled in a corner, hating everything. And even so, the most reaction he’d ever gotten about it was some cheesy line about how it was a romantic miracle.

Ugh.

He set his chin in his hand and sighed, staring out over the ice.

This wasn’t getting him anywhere either.

 

* * *

 

Compared to North’s workshop, Jack didn’t visit Tooth’s palace that often, really, but he always loved it when he was there. Sure, it was all work, work, work, but the constant activity was exhilarating to watch.

All the little mini-fairies, flicking around with teeth and coins and passion for everything. Jack may not have been one for work and deadlines, but he could always appreciate the sight of someone enjoying what they did. And the fairies definitely enjoyed what they did.

And down there, in the middle of everything, was Tooth, snapping off orders and gushing over teeth. Jack crouched down on a ruined column and leaned his cheek against his staff, watching her quietly. She was too focussed to see him, and he was perched high above the easier exit tunnels, so the mini-fairies weren’t paying him any attention either.

It was time for him to work this out.

Jack… liked Tooth. A lot. He’d known the other guardians for so long, even if they hadn’t actually spoken much, but he’d never seen Tooth before he crawled his way out of North’s sack. He didn’t feel like he needed to get past things with her. It was just all… warm.

He blinked slowly, turning the word over in his mind.

It had been a long time since he’d thought the word in a positive light. Normally warmth was uncomfortable, or draining. And he did admit, spending too much time around Tooth could be incredibly tiring as he struggled to keep up with her constant chatter, but it wasn’t the same as a warm fire. It was a good kind of tiring, like a long snowball fight or the ache in your limbs after you built a fort. It was a good kind of warmth.

He liked her smile. He liked how quick it was, and the croaky, breathless laugh that so often accompanied it. He liked her eyes, how they always met his gaze with easy grace. They were so wide, so bright… even as the world fell down, her eyes still sparkled. He liked to watch her feathers, how they would ripple and shift with her emotions, so subtle but so obvious when you watched.

He wanted that smile. He wanted her smile and her bright eyes and ruffled feathers, and he never ever wanted to let them go. He never wanted to go back to a life without Tooth in it.

But did that mean he wanted more?

He stared at her for a long few minutes, watching her face, her wings, her hips, her hands. As if she could sense his stare, she looked away from work once or twice, but never high enough, and she didn’t seem bothered by it, so he didn’t pull back, or think about what look she might see if she did.

Because, he realised slowly, there would be a look. It would be intense, and hopeful, and longing, but…

But it wouldn’t be _that_ look.

He smiled, leaning a little more heavily on his staff as he came to grips with the knowledge. Then, without so much as a breath, he flipped off the pillar and dropped down through the sea of mini-fairies to land soundlessly behind Tooth, who squeaked at the cold and quickly spun to face him.

“Jack!”

“Hey, Tooth!” he said cheerfully. “Sorry, not here for long, just wanted to give you something.”

She smiled fondly, her shoulders relaxing. “You’re hardly the type to give presents, Jack. I don’t need a snowday.”

“Everyone needs snowdays,” he corrected. “But that’s not it. Promise.”

“Then what is it?”

Rather than answer, he just grinned and darted forward to wrap his arms around her. It was the first hug he’d ever initiated. Tooth seemed to realise it, because she actually stilled before gently curling her hands up to press against his back, holding him closer. When he pulled away, she smiled but furrowed her brow, confused.

“Thank you, but…?”

“No reason,” he said, and then shrugged and stepped back. “Just wanted to.”

“Oh.” She blinked, but her smile grew a little wider, pleased. “Well. That’s a gift I’ll always be glad to have.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said, and hopped twice before jumping into the air. Realisation done and desires satisfied, Jack gave her a quick, playful salute and flew back into the wind. He’d had more than enough soul searching today – it was time for some fun.

**Author's Note:**

> The 48 are a collection of unfinished and/or pointless fics saved to my hard drive, now posted to Ao3 in case people want to adopt them, or for interest's sake.
> 
> I'm not a huge fan of Jack/Tooth, and I think the hint of it in the movie is one of the many reasons RotG didn't do as well as it could have. But that could be me projecting. Hope I didn't offend anyone and you enjoyed it!


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